Wider questions raised by LSE affair

The critique of the London School of Economics is frustrating for the hypocrisy and the narrowness of the attack (Report, 5 March). Rather than questioning the politico-economic terrain in which this situation has arisen, critics have focused on just a few individuals.

Why are we publicly impaling the LSE? Because the LSE accepted money from Gaddafi's son? Because LSE representatives went to Libya? Because they accepted to train Libya's future leaders?

Libya has diplomatic and trade relations and agreements with the UK, as can be read at ukinlibya.fco.gov.uk/en/. Here one finds an email address which deals with trade issues: trade.libya@fco.gov.uk. The section (now suspended) on "working with Libya" would have detailed the opportunities there. So why exactly is the LSE, and other universities which have done what thousands of companies and our state have been doing and clearly supporting, under attack?

There are two points to this. Firstly, universities are more accountable and more transparent than other institutions, so they are an easy target for those who want to clear the house of the old (New) Labour debris. Secondly, there is still a fantasy of a certain purity universities are supposed to have. But why? It has become clear that the state does not want to invest in universities, and that universities have to increasingly pay their own way. External funding sources are limited to private donors, companies, other organisations and students' fees. Gaddafi's son, Saif, has a PhD from LSE so, as in the case of the US model that the UK is so eager to follow, a rich alumnus was supporting his alma mater.

So either stop whining for a purity that never was, or keep up with your outrage and demand top-level resignations and full inquiries from the financial sector, the energy one, the construction one, until you reach the heart of government in light of their dealings with tyrannical regimes of which Gaddafi's is just one.

Dr Alessia Contu

Warwick Business School

• I have rarely encountered such disingenuousness as that to be found in Professor Desai's defence of his role in the examination of the PhD thesis of Saif Gaddafi at the LSE (LSE is paying a heavy price, 4 March). Desai writes that "as one of the two external examiners … I can only say that we were never informed" of any suspicion of plagiarism in this case. It is true that plagiarism can be difficult to detect (let alone prove), whether at undergraduate or postgraduate level. Nevertheless, the LSE's own published guidelines for the conduct of PhD examinations explicitly charge the examiners to satisfy themselves "that the thesis is genuinely the work of the candidate" (LSE guidelines for the conduct of MPhil and PhD oral examinations).

But Desai is not content with trying to blame others for what appears to be his own failure to conduct a sufficiently rigorous examination of the Gaddafi thesis. He claims that those who feel queasy at the LSE's entanglement with Gaddafi père et fils are failing to appreciate the "reality of UK higher education" funding, and that in the future "domestic students will have to pay as well". But not, presumably, at quite the rate that the LSE was able to extract from the Libyan regime?

Jonathan Sawday

Saint Louis University, Missouri, USA

• Lord Desai seems to be aggrieved because nobody told him as the PhD examiner of Saif Gaddafi that the candidate had committed plagiarism. But it is precisely the job of the examiner, as an expert in the field, to assess the originality of a doctoral thesis. So neither Desai, nor his co-examiner, nor Mr Gaddafi's supervisors, did their jobs. Have none of them heard of Google? It's not too hard these days to catch out the plagiariser.

Professor Philip Steadman

University College London

• Once a week I conduct a ghost walk which passes through the LSE campus.Last Wednesday we were handed leaflets for the Trainee Traders Society. I believe I felt the presence of angry ghosts of LSE alumni who once attended this educational institution for reasons beyond the mere search for personal enrichment.